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هم
Vikt
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Enclosure 20
134
for a salary, the profits to go to the employers. This practice canmt be definitely proved, but it is well know that it exists. A statement was made not long ago by a Solicitor employed by one of the leading firms that he was offered a salary and the backing of a capital sum of 830,000 to practise on these conditions.
Another Solicitor, an Oxford man, origin- -ally of great promise, who got into bad hande, was question- -ed confidentially and gave much information on the subject of the abuses rampant; and in a letter from him, dated May, 1915, occurs the following somewhat candid admission:- "No
one desires more than I do to have the legal Augean Stables cleansed, even though I were also washed down the drain!".
6.
I am informed that, concurrently with these abuses, there has been apparent a certain lexity in
respect of costs charged by and allowed to Solicitors, a
larity which is no doubt restrained by the present Registrar of the Court, though it cannot be effectively combated with-
-out strong support from the Judges. To illustrate my point I attach an extract from a report by hir. Nisbet ns Taxing Master, made not long after his arrival in the Colony. The
charge of £3,268 was not officially taken notice of by the Chief Justice, to whom the report was made.
7.
I regret to have to add that the public in Hongkong have not been for some years and are not now satisfied with the administration of justice in the Supreme
Court; and I am convinced, as is Mr. Sharp, that the real
remedy for what is a very serious condition in a British
Colony of the commercial importance of Hongkong lies in
changing the system of appointment of Judges of the Supreme
Court.
It is in my opinion absolutely essential
that at least the Head of the Judiciary should be a man who
has
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